


Some Nights (It's Because Of The Past)

by phrenitis



Series: Some Nights [4]
Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-15
Updated: 2013-09-15
Packaged: 2017-12-05 09:32:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/721535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phrenitis/pseuds/phrenitis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It could be a warning sign, but it's just as likely the champagne.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers: Season Two, _War_.

For all the tension in the air lately, he expects to be more stressed. There are the multiple hostile takeover attempts, and Scottie playing her usual deceptive games, and the future of the Pearson will-be-Specter firm in question, but he's feeling quite oddly... zen about everything.

It could be a warning sign, but it's just as likely the champagne. The party is an expensive success, he'll give Edward that much.

"Your date?" Donna asks with an arched eyebrow as he joins her at the bottom of the sweeping staircase and offers her his arm. It was an offhanded comment to Jessica - the statement simply a minor technicality, and one that saved him from getting stuck in unbearable discussion with Edward. He knows she'll understand.

"Louis brought Norma," he points out.

She gives a wry smile. "That's hardly a compliment."

"You look stunning," he says to appease her though there's too much truth behind the words. The dress fits her perfectly - it's edgy and unbelievably sexy, her legs look long and toned, and the exposed length of her thigh is all unfair temptation. He realizes he's staring and only registers the swift flicker of pleasure that passes over her face after he continues talking. "Am I forgiven?"

"You really know how to ruin a moment," she replies, but it's good humored. She eyes him over her champagne glass as she takes a sip. "Speaking of, what are you planning to do about the merger?"

It comes as no surprise that she knows what's on his mind. He puts on a confident smile. "Exactly what I do best."

"Is Jessica ready for that?" She asks it lightly although he knows how weighted the question really is. It's a gamble, but he wants and wins in equal measures, and his successful history with Pearson Hardman backs up that fact. Plus, _zen_.

He gives a shrug. "She'll come around."

Donna looks pensive. "Be careful biting the hand that feeds you, Harvey."

It's an unusual comment coming from her. He doesn't question Donna's loyalty, and he's never been foolish enough to dismiss her advice, but the merger talks have heightened the stakes. "You think I should let the merger continue? And what, roll over and wag my tail for a pat on the head from Darby?"

"You know that's not what I mean," she says and gives him a pointed glance. He doesn't bother with an apology she doesn't expect, and relaxes back in the familiar.

"Jessica doesn't want a merger," he assures her. "This is just another player at bat."

She quirks a smile. "Caution’s never been your strong suit."

"You can't win without risk."

She drinks to that.

==

Nigel-something asks Donna to dance. Harvey watches as she accepts, but then her glance flicks over his way - it's too quick and their eyes don’t meet.

He wonders what that's all about.

So he decides to cut in as the music starts. She doesn’t say a word, just lightly shakes her head as his hands slide down over her hips and the space between them condenses in a step.

“Already with the takeover,” he says jokingly, but it sounds strangely possessive.

Donna’s mouth tightens imperceptibly like she hears it, too.

==

He doesn’t know where to go after - overwhelmed by Mike and Jessica, Scottie and Edward, and the Pearson-nothing sign on the wall.

The glass framing his office is unusually hard to break. Even though there’s no slam of a door, the glass still rattles against the hinges loudly.

He has a feeling that throwing something would have been more satisfying.

==

It's the third shot of scotch that does him in.

A kind of drunken melancholy settles, and he's still just on the right side of lucid to feel miserable and know exactly why. There hasn't been any part of the day he wants to hang on to, but the scotch-fueled depression keeps all of it top of mind anyway, the events replaying even while he drinks to try and temporarily forget. 

Anger still burns at the edges of his thoughts because of Mike's betrayal, and it's worsened by guilt and confusion over how everything settled with Scottie. 

Had it ended there, he might have called it a night with a few extra hours at the office and a drink before bed. But anger and guilt only sit beneath the cloud of humiliation he feels over his public defeat and the complete dressing down he received from Jessica. He's on the outs with everyone, and never before has that been a problem.

Harvey pours a fourth shot, liquid gold beckoning; he knows the day's conversations will silence eventually with help. The condo already sets the mood - it hadn't seemed necessary to do anything more than turn on a light and throw his jacket and tie over a chair. His counter serves as a dimly lit bar, and he has an open tab.

He looks up when he feels her hand on his. Donna wears a faint frown, her expression resigned rather than pitying, and he protests when she slides the untouched shot of scotch beyond his reach.

"More scotch is the cure," he tells her because he's sure in short order he could drink enough to find blissful oblivion if she'd just give him the glass back. It occurs to him that Donna must have let herself in. "What are you doing here?"

"Do you have to ask?" she says as she caps the bottle of scotch beside him and puts it back with the rest of the liquor. Her hair is pulled away from her face, done up attractively in a creative knot at the nape of her neck. It draws his attention - he's never really noticed her neck before, the smooth line from ear to collarbone that gently twists as she turns her head to look at him. "You're not alone in this, Harvey."

Because it's Donna, she says the one thing that squarely nails his present insecurity. He ignores her attempts to find an upside to the merger. "No? Should I call Mike? Or maybe Scottie. Why do you think we ended up in this goddamn mess?"

"None of this is anyone's fault."

"Of course it is!" It explodes out of him unchecked – feelings and weakness. "We had exactly what we needed to send Darby running."

“There are people on your side.” She leans against the counter across from him so she's in his eyeline. "Mike _and_ Dana included. People who were willing to cross into an unethical grey area because of _you_."

"And look how well it all turned out," he reminds her. He doesn't have people for a reason; he doesn't _need_ people to win.

"Jesus, Harvey. The situation wasn't strictly black and white."

He scoffs and catches the frustrated look she shoots his way.

"Scotch doesn't agree with you," she notes dryly.

He shrugs. "I'm not very agreeable."

She doesn't say anything, apparently not finding fault with that assessment, and even as it bothers him that she doesn't disagree, he knows the truth of it. Right now, he's a lousy drunk.

"You lost, Harvey," she says firmly so he gets it. He doesn't want sympathy, least of all from her, but he hates her words all the same.

Donna comes around the counter to take the seat next to him. She's wearing a coat, but from where it falls open he can see the dress beneath - a wine-colored purple that looks elegant and surprisingly modest. She's interrupted her date for him, not for the first time either, and he doesn't know what to think about that. Their history goes back further than he understands.

"Do you remember the first case?" he asks. "Not as Cameron's second, but the time he didn't show?"

She's watching him closely, and he can see the way her lower eyelashes curl down, the faint freckles on her cheeks.

Donna nods. "The Ballinger case."

"Do you remember what you said to me?"

"Try not to crush them."

He can't help but smile at that. "I meant what you said after. After the win."

She hesitates, swallows, and then he’s watching her throat, looking at her neck again. There are scattered freckles there too, barely visible in the light. She's right beside him and his hand comes up to reach for her as though he plans to touch her, as though he'll be able to trace the line of her jaw into memory. He thinks maybe it’s possible he missed the obvious – all those years ago when she might have been trying to tell him something…

“Make it a habit,” she says and it interrupts his thoughts, his hand caught in the air between them until he lets it drop. He remembers his question. 

“Make it a habit,” he repeats, nodding slowly. There had been drinking back then, too. Some things don't change. He looks over at her. “Were you on a date?”

She sighs; he has a feeling it's because of him.

"Yes," she admits. "Does it matter?"

Nothing is _supposed_ to matter, and yet his track record for the day is impressively defiant. Donna doesn't wait for his answer.

"We all needed a drink after today," she says.

He indicates the abandoned glass of scotch with a wave of his hand. "By all means."

She takes a sip, and like a moth to flame he finds himself looking at her neck again without meaning to. He wishes she'd take off the coat - it obscures his view though he can just make out the light flutter of her pulse.

"You've got a firm to win back," she tells him. There's a subtle flush creeping up the side of her neck that probably has less to do with scotch and more to do with him than she'll ever admit. He wonders what time has changed and where paths diverged - how she is still beside him after so long, yet why he stands alone from everyone now.

The new rift with Jessica disturbs him further. "I don't know if it can be fixed."

"Since when did you stop at impossible?"

He smirks. "There's not an _easy_ fix."

"So stop wallowing," she reprimands like it should have been obvious, but she glances at him with that special smile of hers and holds the scotch up in toast of her own solution. He's always found her smile disarming, and it suddenly catches him unawares, her unshakable faith in him.

It's most decidedly _not_ -zen, but he's already kissing her before he's even finished thinking about it as a really fucked up idea. And it is, the glass caught between them, and then falling, as if in slow motion the long distance down to shatter on the floor. He doesn't care about the mess; he doesn't care _at all_ , but she mumbles _shit_ against his lips even as his hand slips past the collar of her coat to feel the soft skin of her neck, his fingers drawing along her collarbone until his thumb rests in the hollow of her throat.

He's standing somehow, standing beside her chair with his other hand stroking the inside of her thigh. And despite the broken glass omen, her chin tilts up to follow his mouth and she kisses him back. It's messy and impolite - cruel, really, the way he takes and she gives like a desperate kind of need fulfilling them both. It's perfect in that way, too, the way they both can want with sudden abandon.

There's a low hum in her throat he feels under his fingers, but it doesn't resolve into words until she pulls away with a whispered, _damn it_ , and a shake of her head. It's not an apology and he doesn't want to be sorry; there is nothing here to regret. He's still standing between her legs with her breath hot and measured on his chest, and everything about the moment feels like the right kind of bad idea.

She tasted like scotch; he knows that means something.

"Harvey," she says, and the sound is encouraging and wanting. "I should leave."

He doesn't trust himself to respond. Whatever she probably wants him to be thinking, he'd likely disappoint her. There's not a single pure thought in his head.

"I should leave," she repeats quietly, and he thinks maybe it's supposed to be a question.

He frees the clip in her hair, the twist coming apart to send red curls down her back. No apologies.

"This is it, right? The line?" she asks.

He has no idea what she's talking about. "What line?"

She looks up at him and she actually seems sad. Not in a he-said-something-wrong sad exactly, but something deeper and tragic like memories from a long forgotten past. Before he can take a step back and give her space, her hands are pulling his shirt loose from his pants, her fingers deftly undoing buttons.

"Donna." He knows he's missed something. Figures it was probably important too from the way her hands slide up his chest with no misgivings. "This doesn't-"

She cuts him off, her mouth finding his as she stands and her body folds into him. For a second there's a strange sort of broken desperation in the kiss, but then she's shrugging out of her coat, hips pressing against his not as a suggestion, but as a demand.

He pulls her to him tightly and feels her smile of approval.

==

The sex is raw and rough with wants greater than comfort.

Her hand fists in his hair when he bites at the inside of her thigh, uses his teeth and tongue to hold her at the point until her breath is in hitches. She alternates between curses and orders then, and god he loves that she never begs. Not once.

Like it's a fight to the end.

==

"Is this a pity fuck?" he asks because it occurs to him that might have escaped his notice earlier.

Her fingers dig into his back and her exhale is right in his ear. "Oh my god, Harvey."

He'll admit his timing could have been better. He tightens his grip on her hip as it rolls beneath him when his thrust falls out of rhythm.

"So this is...?" he presses, but he's having trouble concentrating on his question, no surprise - thoughts coming to him in bursts of clarity.

She doesn't answer immediately, strands of tangled curls caught against her cheek, and her mouth hovering near his as she looks at him.

"This is," she starts, and her voice is ragged when she struggles for breath, "...meaningless."

Something tells him it's actually all been the wrong kind of good idea.

==

They don't leave the kitchen, and at some point, the scotch returns. _In for a penny_ , he thinks. So it's drunk fucking on cold counter tops and against harsh edges that bruise.

It's a pretty obvious metaphor.

==


	2. Chapter 2

He loses _again_.

The second loss hurts worse than the first. Once is a fluke, but now he's in a rut, and even Louis looks at him with a kind of thrilled horror.

"Get it together," Jessica says sternly in passing, and he grits his teeth. He has everything to prove to get his name on the wall where it's deserved, but he's having a hell of a time showing it.

Donna meets him in his office with a stack of files and a hard look. "You need to bring Mike in on this."

He notices she doesn't use the word help, or position the statement as a suggestion; it's as though she already knows he's going to avoid the discussion. "Did Lamar call?"

"I handled it. Don't change the subject."

There's definitely no getting her to leave it alone until he answers. "I've got it under control."

"You're in trouble," she argues. "And you're the only one who doesn't want to see it."

The hard reality is he _could_ use Mike on the case; it's already unraveling faster than he can put motions in place to hold it together. Two losses could become three very quickly, and unacceptable is an understatement. But betrayal is not something Harvey takes lightly.

"He hasn't suffered enough," he tells her, only half-joking.

She doesn't bother to hide her exasperation. "Let it go, Harvey. It's been long enough. You've put all of this on him, and he's not the one you're fighting."

It feels more like a battle against everyone in the firm - against Jessica's ironclad control, Darby's slow takeover, Scottie's inconsistency, and every partner that's eyeing the growing chink in his armor. He doesn't want to admit to what Donna is pointing out, but it's becoming clear he won't survive the onslaught alone.

"I'll think about it," he offers. But he knows even as he says it that it's simply pride getting the better of him. He sighs. "Tell Mike I need to see him."

"He's already on his way," she answers smoothly.

He should have known.

==

"Donna suggested it," he tells Scottie as he refills her glass. "Louis was in my office for a week yammering on about the M&A strategy, so she had the courier drop it off anonymously - a bottle she'd picked up with Brad or something a few days ago, but it looked-"

"-Brian."

He stops at her interruption. "Who's Brian?"

"Brian," she repeats in two syllables as though his hearing it again slower will somehow help him remember. "Donna's boyfriend."

He shrugs. "Brad, Brian, whatever. He was just her..."

The word _date_ is on his tongue, but it dies just before he says it - _boyfriend_ finally filtering through. Suddenly he realizes it _has_ been a while now that Donna's been seeing this guy - the name coming up enough in random conversation that Harvey at least had the start of it correct.

Scottie is watching him, eyebrows raised in amusement. "There it is."

"What?"

"Your 'figuring it out' face," she explains.

He smirks, unconvinced.

"Why do you think I beat you at poker?" she adds.

==

So Donna has a boyfriend.

It's a non-event, he tells himself.

==

He wins the next case, thankfully, and it's a slaughter.

He's in a take-no-prisoners mood after the months he's had, so the damage inflicted is severe and the rewards for Pearson Darby significant. It doesn't immediately fix the tension with Jessica, or the distrust from Edward, but it goes a long way toward helping and putting him back on top.

"It was legendary," Mike shares proudly.

"Don't get cocky," Donna admonishes them both, but she winks.

Scottie doesn't talk to him for weeks.

==

But ever hot and cold, Scottie returns to his door after the period of silence wearing a trench coat with nothing underneath.

"The competitive side doesn't just go away because I love you," she admits in lieu of an apology as she sheds the coat with a lazy smile and starts working on his belt.

"I'm going to keep winning." He wants to be clear about that. This thing between them doesn't come at the expense of his career.

"You're not the only big shot lawyer at Pearson Darby, you know," she teases as she continues to casually strip him of his clothes. "We're both getting our names on that door."

"I'll probably get there first."

She laughs. "Then next time, it's going to take longer than a couple of weeks to get over it."

He slips his hands around to her back to pull her close so he can place a kiss on her shoulder, another on her neck. "Donna said to give you the space."

Scottie suddenly stiffens in his arms. "God, Harvey."

"What?"

She shakes her head in frustration and looks up at him. "Do you hear yourself?"

"Was I not supposed to do that?" he asks, hesitant but incredulous. Somehow he's veered off course, and it's like finding himself in the middle of a minefield with no idea where it's safe to step.

Scottie sighs. "Just... stop talking, okay?"

He complies, his lips meeting hers with no further questions asked, and at least _that_ seems like the right thing to do.

==

After the official completion of the merger, the firm transforms into a battleground - Pearson and Darby redundancies on either side of the pond are cut, and the feeling of desperation lingers in conference rooms.

He relies heavily on Donna's inside knowledge to stay ahead of the changes and keep as many Pearson assets in place as possible. His involvement in select troubled cases across the firm that Donna makes a point to stress is very discreet; publicly, his own cases continue to win as they should. They're not as financially lucrative in scale, but they're wins, sometimes impossible wins, and helped in no small part by Mike who is unusually razor-sharp and focused.

"It's Rachel," Donna says, and lifts an eyebrow meaningfully.

It clicks immediately. "He's sleeping with her?"

"Good luck stopping that."

Harvey's already spending an extraordinary amount of time protecting Mike's secret and keeping him out of Edward's crosshairs, and he suspects Jessica is doing likewise. It's in the best interest of all involved to keep _that_ information quiet. As far as he's concerned, Mike can sleep with whomever the hell he wants, but Harvey remembers their conversation from months ago and his ire rises.

"He told her." It's not a guess, and Donna's face says it all. He slams a file closed. "I'm going to kill him."

"Rachel will keep his confidence," she states, and she seems sure.

"Because he's made such good choices up until now," he reminds her as sarcasm rises to the surface.

"Because _I_ know Rachel," she counters.

"So when he does something stupid and they're yelling at each other in the middle of the office, or when Darby questions her value to the firm and she has to prove her worth... even then?"

Donna just looks at him calmly. "Even then."

He wonders briefly if there's layered meaning in her words. It's an insinuation in her tone, an undercurrent that seems to say something about loyalty and trust.

They never discussed the night at his place. It hadn't been necessary with understanding built into their 13 years, and there had been no change between them, no fallout in the months since. It only crosses his mind on occasion - the way she had kissed him, intoxicating in the depth of feeling like it had been all or nothing.

He looks up at her, but she's gone before he's thought of the right question to ask.

==

"It wasn't winning that defined you," she'd said, quiet and poised when she'd left that night.

He still doesn't know what she meant.

==

Jessica hands him the case with a cool, "play nice."

It's second chair to Darby much to Harvey's annoyance, but unexpectedly, it doesn't end up the disaster he anticipates at the start. There's a brilliance to Edward's approach, like a chess Grandmaster planning six moves ahead, that Harvey finds himself reluctantly admiring. Although initially distrusting, he can't find argument with Edward's strategy, and together they craft a defense that is devastatingly sharp. They're not more than two days in when the prosecution crumbles.

"That might be a record," Edward reflects later, his interest piqued. "You're a talented lawyer, Harvey."

Jessica's reaction is understated - a curt nod, and the hand-off of yet another special case - her cards held much closer to her chest since the merger. But even in success, Harvey still feels the yoke of control around his neck.

He knows it's a long road to redemption, and the thought chafes.

==

It takes some time to see - both of them occupied with the influx of cases as the two firms combine. But slowly he begins to notice the disconnect between them as though he and Scottie always seem to be one step off despite their efforts to make the relationship work.

It's an observation that once identified can't be ignored, and soon he notices it frequently. In decisions, in arguments - Scottie doesn't say what he thinks she will. But more than that, she doesn't say what he _needs_. She agrees where he thinks she'll challenge him. She fights where he needs her to take his side. It's perplexing and frustrating, even simple conversations twisted by the unpredictable, and he feels it all should be easier.

"You have these expectations," she says over morning coffee and bagels like it's safer to broach the topic in the pre-dawn light. "Expectations of how we should be."

"It was different in law school," he admits. Everything seemed to work better between them before.

"We were just two kids fooling around together back then, of course it's going to be different. But Harvey, something's wrong in _this_ relationship."

She waits for him to figure out the unrealizable. And the moment hangs, asynchronous, as he waits for her to tell him what he's missed. It's with examples like these that he can't help but wonder if they should understand each other better by now. He wishes for Donna's input; he knows she would already have it figured out and be cutting to the chase.

"Do you love me?" Scottie asks suddenly, but she's more curious than apprehensive.

He knows she loves him, and she hadn't before pressed him for the same - sensing, perhaps, that he didn't have an answer. It's obvious they work well professionally in both competition and now in cooperation, and there's familiarity behind it having known her for years. It hasn't been a daily association however, so it isn't as instinctive as it is with Donna - the history not as complete and the relationship not as smooth, but it should be enough that the gaps and missteps are workable despite his... expectations.

 _Maybe that's what love is_ , he thinks, and kisses her.

==

It occurs to him one day out of the blue that Donna hasn't thrown a quip about Scottie his way in months.

He wonders when that started.

==

His conversation with Jessica goes badly. Very badly.

He's played the good soldier since the merger and proved himself by bringing both new business and wins to the firm. But what starts as a reasonable demand dissolves into an ugly argument that ends with a threat and a reminder.

"I will tell you when you're even _close_ to ready," she says, voice low with hard finality.

This time, he throws something, and it breaks into too many pieces to count.

==

Love at first sight and happily ever after are things Gordon believed, and look what that got him, so Harvey's approach is tentative to say the least. He doesn't want to be in love because the word still carries connotations of weakness he can't overcome, but he knows he wants what love, in all of its misguided forms, offers despite these flaws.

There's comfort in being in an equal partnership with Scottie, in having a shared history and being in one another's confidence. It feels familiar and right, and he manages not to balk at what a relationship with her represents. And though it's never easy, occasionally - when their conversation is in sync, when her body fits with his, or she smiles right when he thinks she will - the prospect of love isn't quite so daunting.

==

It's a white tie ball to rival any event that's ever come from the likes of Smith & Devane or Wakefield-Cady, and the message to everyone is clear - Pearson Darby is unparalleled. The celebration of a year of partnership extends to their entire bank of clients, the list impressively long. Harvey is learning that Edward lives in majors, not minors, and from the excess of guests already present, the city embraces the philosophy eagerly.

Harvey leaves Scottie in conversation with Mike as he goes in search of a stronger drink to exchange for his champagne. He turns the corner and in his periphery catches sight of Donna across the bar. It's worth the double-take it causes - she looks _unbelievable_.

He has a hard time reconciling the Donna he's known for over a decade with the one standing twenty feet away. He's never seen her in this particular dress - a radiant sapphire and gold with creative angles in the design that cover one shoulder and cut away to a slit that ends low between her breasts; it pulls his focus, and then his thoughts, as he imagines it's meant to. Harvey knows well what it would be like to have her out of the dress, and unbidden, the memories from that night rush at him. They're practically in Technicolor 4D with his mind in fifth gear the way it is, and his mouth suddenly feels dry like the ballroom has gone arid. It seems too warm inside, claustrophobic even, but he finds himself still staring as Brian casually slides his arm around her waist.

Harvey decides he's never really liked the name Brian. It's overused and unremarkable, and Donna has always before gone for guys with names like Mateus or Everett or Anton. He doesn't know what it is about Brian that's caught her interest - the guy seems too tame, too... undeserving.

"You didn't make it far," Scottie notes as she joins him. There's a pause as she follows his line of sight. "Now I get it."

He gives her a questioning glance.

"Donna," she says simply. "And Brian."

He detects the odd tone in her voice and guesses he hasn't been alone in noticing the incompatibility. "It doesn't make sense."

"Doesn't it?"

"He isn't her type," he explains, and watches as Donna smiles at something Brian says. "The last guy was an Austrian dignitary with a summer home in Milan. Before him was a Formula One official. She breaks up with them and she gets handbags and symphony tickets, not flowers. Brian is a flowers guy."

Scottie lets out a soft sigh. "She's happy, Harvey."

"Is she?" He knows exactly what will make Donna laugh - has gotten good over the years at reading her, at knowing what she doesn't say when she looks over at him. And from the way she always lets Brian reach for her, or how her smiles with Brian seem to lack that extra layer of pride or joy or mischief, he feels somehow like she's settling.

"Settling for what?" Scottie asks coolly, and he didn't realize he'd commented aloud. He also doesn't have an answer. There's something about saying _settling for love_ that suddenly seems like a very bad idea.

Donna's attention flits across the room, her gaze finding his. He doesn't know when her expressions became so enigmatic, but there's nothing more to her smile for him than what he's used to seeing in her usual morning greeting. He doesn't expect more, and yet it's also the same reserved smile she uses with Brian.

"You should tell her," Scottie says, and he laughs at the suggestion.

"I'm sure she'd appreciate knowing we think Brian's a flowers guy."

She shakes her head like she's perplexed, a ghost of a smile present that also manages to look incredibly sad. "God, Harvey, you're an idiot."

He frowns, not expecting that comment. "What am I missing here?"

Edward joins them looking pleased, and Scottie doesn't get the opportunity to answer.

"Quite an impressive turnout," Edward observes, then glances between them. "Ah, I seem to be interrupting."

Scottie puts on a smile though Harvey can tell it's forced. "No, it's alright. I could use another drink."

He watches her leave, feeling unsettled and frustrated. One step off, as usual.

"I wanted a word, Harvey," Edward says, putting a stop to any further thought on the situation with Scottie. "While you and I might have started off on the wrong foot, I hope we can set the past behind us. You've closed some impressive cases recently."

Harvey acknowledges the remark with a nod. He might be on better terms now with the Darby contingent that's been added to the firm, but he still doesn't trust their intentions. "It isn't a fluke."

"No," Edward agrees. "I can see that now. The best closer in the city, but hard to control."

He clenches his jaw briefly, shrugs. "Is this your idea of bromance?"

Edward ignores the jab, watches him keenly. "I believe it's high time we talk about making you a named partner."

Shock shoots through him, but Harvey holds it at bay, his suspicions suddenly raised. "And Jessica's on board with this?"

Edward simply offers a nonchalant smile. "Darby Specter has the perfect ring to it, wouldn't you agree?"

==

Donna finds him before Scottie does, a fifth of bourbon in hand that she passes over to him.

"What did he say?" she asks and sits beside him on the bench. It's brisk outside, but he needed the air to clear his head. From the way he feels stiff with cold, he guesses he's been sitting for a while.

"That I'm the best closer in New York," he says honestly, unsure if he's been able to work through the rest.

She gives him a look. "You know I'll figure it out."

He knows that to be true enough. He glances over and sees that at least she had the presence of mind to grab her coat before she followed him outside.

"How's Brian?" He doesn't care, but somehow he wants to hear her answer.

She studies him for a moment, and he suddenly recognizes the silence. Over the last year she's grown distant - not in the cases or the firm, not in the everyday of their professional lives, but in the personal. Without even being fully aware, he'd missed that rapport, that easy partnership with her.

"He's good," she says, and takes a breath. "We don't have to do this."

"And the magazine?" he continues. He knows print is a dying medium and even an editor of a highly regarded publication like _The Observer_ would be wary of the digital future.

"It's fine. Harvey, what's going on?"

He's satisfied with the simplicity of Donna's answers, yet bothered by the lack of detail. The wants are incongruous and irritating. He throws back the bourbon and waits for it to do its job, warmth crawling down to settle in the pit of his stomach.

"Darby Specter," he says, and Donna looks speechless.

There's a long pause as she absorbs the information, but he knows her question before she even asks it.

"And Jessica?"

He has no answer. The prospect of Darby Specter leaves little doubt where Pearson fits into the equation. But Donna doesn't look like she's waiting for more, her brow furrowed and expression serious. "What are you going to do?"

He runs a hand over his jaw. "I have no idea."

He's thankful when she doesn't press him further - Donna knowing in her unique way that he needs more time. She rests a hand on his arm. "We need to go back inside; you're freezing."

So he follows her back to the party, bourbon warming his core and his head too full of unorganized thought. Darby Specter is an offer he never saw coming, and it's a greater temptation than he ever thought possible.

"What did you mean?" he asks, stops her inside the entrance before they're surrounded by the crowd.

She looks at him questioningly. "What did I mean when?"

"It wasn't winning that defined me."

She doesn't look surprised at the topic, just thoughtful as she reaches up to straighten his tie. Her hands don't linger, just a quick fix, yet it's more intimate than any interaction they've had in nearly a year.

"You'll do the right thing, Harvey," she says.

It's not an answer, but somehow it still helps.

==

He doesn't get a chance to reflect on the conversation before Scottie approaches and gestures toward Donna's retreating form. "She doesn't see it either."

"See what?" he asks. Everything feels like a question with her tonight.

Scottie looks at him, her expression saddened but resolved. "It's never going to work, you and me. Not like we want it to."

He knows these speeches, but hearing it from her comes as a complete surprise. It hasn't been the easiest relationship, more dissonance than harmony, but he thought they were finally getting somewhere - that love was becoming more than just a possibility.

"Harvey, you're in love with her," she states, and her voice doesn't waver.

It takes him a second. "With Donna?"

And he can't help but laugh. He's still finding his footing around the concept of love, only now open to accepting what he previously rejected outright. But _in_ love? With _Donna_?

"Not in the slightest," he continues, amused. "Is this because I closed the O'Leary case?"

Scottie actually smiles like she understands. "What you've been looking for, what's been missing... I'm not her."

He shakes his head, growing frustrated. "Look, I don't know what you think-"

"She's your partner."

"She's my _secretary_ ," he snaps. He says it out of annoyance, but they both know that's the understatement of the year.

Scottie bites her lip, and he's surprised to see how upset she is. "You don't think I want this with you? That I haven't been trying to make this relationship work? _I'm_ in love with _you_ , Harvey."

"Dana-"

"Don't say something you'll regret," she interrupts before he has a chance to argue. "I know you don't understand. But you'll have to trust me on this one."

He needs a drink. "So that's it?"

She's watching him carefully, her thoughts hidden from him, looking beautiful in a long silver dress that he hadn't fully noticed until now.

"You're a good man, Harvey," Scottie says with tempered emotion and leans in to press a kiss against his cheek. "Just don't take too long to figure that out."

He's left with an empty glass of bourbon and the remnants of what feels like a bad joke. _In love with Donna_ , he thinks again. He wants to laugh, but nothing about the idea is funny anymore.

==


	3. Chapter 3

The answer never changed -

"You can find rhythm in jazz, thought in baseball, and oblivion in scotch," Gordon would say, and he'd shake his head with a smile. "But you can only find all three in love, son. It's irrational that way."

So Harvey built a world in black versus white and right versus wrong, found sanctuary in prosecution versus defense and innocent versus guilty. The law could bend, but the rules were steadfast, and he knew them _all_.

\- the thing Gordon never learned was irrationality could be conquered.

==

Donna steps into his office and closes the door behind her looking serious. "Jessica knows."

His pulse kicks up a notch. "About Darby?"

"No," she shakes her head, and looks as relieved as he feels. "Not yet."

He doesn't miss the way she emphasizes the last word with a raised eyebrow. It’s a reminder that he’s lit a fuse after making the decision to take over the firm, and that the blow out will be severe. It means a coup, and a betrayal of everything he's built with Jessica. But after the last year, he's well past having earned the reward the alliance with Edward will net him.

"Scottie requested a transfer to London," Donna informs him, and he can’t read anything behind her neutral tone.

Harvey had tried calling a few times after the party, but Scottie could be stubbornly elusive when she wanted to be. And after the topic of their last conversation, he's not surprised to find Scottie wants space from him, and likely in some way from Donna as well. He schools his expression the best he can, although he knows it's not likely to matter. He doesn't even bother to ask how Donna discovered the information. 

He shrugs like it’s irrelevant. "Everyone knows?"

"The transfer is being kept quiet for now," she says before offering a sympathetic glance. "But your split with Dana - those rumors started when you left the party separately."

"What do they think?" he asks, amused despite the circumstances. "Scottie's leaving me because I've been offered named partner?"

Donna pauses, and he realizes that’s probably exactly what she thought. And now he's just cast doubt on the most likely of options and given her an easy opening for the truth.

"You didn't tell her," she says, surprise written in her expression. He hadn't meant to deliberately keep the news of Edward's offer from Scottie, but he's aware that he chose to exclusively confide in Donna instead.

Donna pulls out a chair and sits looking far too intrigued by this new knowledge. "Did she leave because of the win on the O'Leary case?"

“Hey, _I_ could have dumped _her_.”

“Oh please. You’ve been wearing navy hues; it’s like the Harvey Specter sign of mourning.” Donna brushes it off easily as he glances down self-consciously.

"Did she hear about what happened with the Sampson heiress?" she asks, still guessing.

He gives her a look. " _Nothing_ happened."

She smiles knowingly. "Is that what you told Scottie?"

He declines to bite at that particular comment, and picks up the deposition on the desk intending to read it once she gets the obvious hint and leaves. The whole conversation has spiraled beyond the limits of damage control; the truth should be far from guessable, but Donna's powers of deduction are impressive, and he’s familiar enough with her talents to know when to stop talking.

He’s also distracted by her presence in a way he hasn’t been in years – conscious of how she looks, and what she says, and how she reacts – aware that this love business has been over a decade in the making and his parents didn’t even last that long under false pretenses.

“If she screwed with you...," Donna notes, looking serious again.

" _That_ was mutual," he interjects wryly.

“You can just give the word,” she says, ignoring his admittedly weak remark while she leans in conspiratorially. "I have people-"

He glances up at her. "Don’t you have work to do?"

“She doesn’t have to see it coming,” Donna adds, but his comment accomplishes what it should to get her out of her seat and to the door. She lingers for a moment and looks back, all joking aside. “I’m sorry, Harvey.”

She doesn’t wait for a reply, and he thinks about how simple life was when love was just a concept.

== 

This thing with Donna…

It’s a partnership, and a friendship, but there is an effortless cadence to their relationship thanks to an inherent knowledge of habits and years of history that he’d never questioned, only trusted her to have completely. It’s always been Harvey _and Donna_ \- a distinction that is unbelievably important to him on both a professional and personal level.

But finally putting a name to it, and making that name _love_ … that sits with him for a lengthy period of time.

It's uncomfortable at first to recognize the very thing he's been ignorant of and yet taken for granted for so long. Worse yet to realize how much he's come to depend on it. That he could be in love with Donna makes sense in an utterly absurd sort of way – she’s the one person he never really thought to worry about. They are the way they are because they were that way from the beginning. And it’s sort of staggering to think he’s been in love with her ever since.

==

It’s all cloak and dagger like something out of an espionage film – on the surface it’s the biggest case anyone has seen in three years, but beneath the shine there’s a complicated plan unfolding that tenuously hinges on a lot of things going very right.

Harvey is a gambling man, a high roller, and he's betting big. He's familiar with working late nights, but he's not familiar with distraction - at least, not the kind that returns to interrupt his thoughts far too often. But Donna is a constant. She has his back with the moves he's making to secure his place as managing partner, but she is Brian's for everything else, and it bugs the shit out of him.

"You've got it bad, kid," he's sure Gordon would say, followed by a pat on the back and a knowing laugh. Harvey hates the lack of control - that same emotional irrationality that Gordon loved. There's no solution to be found at the bottom of a bottle, and no satisfaction with a random woman in his bed, so he wins the battle by navigating a case so complex it leaves no room for anything else.

Edward is cunning in a way Harvey appreciates – true intelligence often a lost art in their field. He values Harvey’s input as an equal and delegates to Harvey the task of crafting the takeover strategy, but he encourages a sort of ruthlessness that toes the line of Jessica’s managerial style. If it plays out correctly, they aren’t simply going to win the case, they are going to win businesses. And they are doing it on terms that clearly set Darby Specter on a decision path both different and welcome than that of Pearson Darby.

“Harvey.” Donna glances up from the files, her expression concerned. “Are you sure about this?”

“That’s the fourth time you’ve asked me that in a month,” he tells her. “What is going on?”

“This case is huge, and it’s all you.” She waves a hand at the folders on the desk. “All of these motions. Contingency stacking clients on a win. The gamble with the witness testimonies. It’s very impressive.”

“Go big or go home,” he reminds her. “I sense a but…”

She frowns and looks up at him. “But your name is on all of it.”

“They’re not just going to put Specter on the door off a promise.”

“No,” she says in agreement. “But they won’t keep Pearson up there either if her closer loses this case.”

"Jesus, Donna," he replies, frustrated and angry. His immediate reaction is defensive – there are more weeks and months invested in this case and this takeover than he has time to sleep anymore. He doesn’t lose cases, and he definitely doesn’t lose deals. But even as he thinks it, he remembers losing the merger deal, remembers losing the two cases that followed. And it means something coming from Donna - being in love with her hasn’t changed the value he places on her opinions. 

He knows his win on the case would guarantee partner backing and a successful takeover from Jessica's leadership. But a loss...

A loss of this magnitude would be devastating. If one side of battle is all the glory, the other is all the bloodshed, and Harvey stands alone with his name inked on everything and nothing leading back to Edward. It wouldn’t be hard for Edward to point a finger at an uncontrollable closer with a reputation for risk, and another at the managing partner who always supported him – then stand back until the swords stopped swinging. There are layers to Edward that Harvey can’t see, and he suspects with a sinking feeling that it was intentional.

He slams his notes down on the desk. “Son of a bitch! He’s setting us up.”

She sits back, distressed agreement in her expression as he deals with the momentary tailspin. He wants to punch his fist through the door. He's put in months of work blindly plotting out the end of his own career at Pearson Darby, or what would probably become Edward Darby & Associates if Edward got his way. He has been played, badly, and it's worse than anything Jessica ever put him through.

He looks over at Donna who is watching him, waiting. He knows she’s worried by the way her hands are tightly together in her lap, but she’s projecting a calm confidence that somehow manages to stop him from losing his shit. He honestly might have walked all the way into this case and out of the firm unknowingly had it not been for her. The relief he feels at that is tremendous. But in the moment he's not just grateful, not just overwhelmingly thankful, he's aware he’s really fucking crazy in love with her.

"Now what?" she asks.

He shakes his head. "I don't know. This is one I’m supposed to lose."

"What's the biggest weakness in the case?"

He almost laughs. He's built the entire case as a defensive package protecting their major vulnerability. "We're guilty."

"That’s never mattered. What's the biggest weakness?" she presses.

“They can _prove_ it.” He’s essentially given Edward the playbook to hand right over to the prosecution – the defensive moves kicked wide open and any advantage gone. They know exactly how he’s going to come at them.

It finally dawns on him then what she's been driving at. _They know exactly how he’s going to come at them._

“Call Mike,” he says, suddenly feeling energized. “We’ve got an entire case to try and rewrite.”

Donna smiles, and it’s not that distant smile she’s been using with him for months now, but a smile and bright eyes full of emotion that he wants almost desperately to mean more. He walks away from her because he thinks about kissing her, and finds himself leaving his office.

“Where are you going?” she asks.

“To see Jessica,” he states as he decides. “I have something to confess.”

==

Jessica's hot anger he expects – and maybe he was hoping a little more of it would be aimed at Edward instead, but he’s not undeserving. It’s the cold anger that takes longer, that he begins to fear won’t burn off. He bites his tongue and waits, keeps finding more time than he’d like to think about Donna and Brian, and works with Mike to start turning the case inside out, rebuilding it on the offensive.

It’s days rather than hours, but eventually Jessica stops at his office to lay a file on his desk. “Their key witness is guilty of the same crime – seven years earlier.”

Harvey is stunned. “How did we miss that?”

“He was never charged; the report was expunged before the record could become a corporate liability."

"So they knew," he realizes.

Jessica's nod is almost vicious. "Oh they didn't just know, they _buried_ it."

The evidence isn't a silver bullet, but it'll cause enough damage to make the prosecution bleed. He holds the file up. “How long have you had this?”

She looks at him and an eyebrow rises. “Did you think I would let you two clowns simply walk off with this case?”

==

They work nights in a quiet-ish bar two zipcodes out just to be safe. It’s subterfuge on top of subterfuge, and the intricacy of building two complex defenses while keeping up pretenses so Edward remains unaware starts a dull headache in Harvey’s right temple. There is no time for anything else - Harvey is consumed by the case, by his righteous anger, and by the necessity that this entire plan work. It’s only in the mornings when his eyes are bloodshot and he feels every detail of the case like a layer on his skin that he realizes just how much it’s costing.

Donna sets a bottle of beer in front of him. “That’s it, Harvey. You’re done for the night.”

He looks up and is surprised to find everyone else has left. He remembers Jessica picking apart the counter claim, and has a hazy memory of Mike stopping in, but the time is fluid and misleading. He rubs at his temple as Donna organizes what’s left of the paperwork on the table. She’s precise and quick, and there’s a grace in her movements that he admires - the way her shoulder slopes as she leans over the table, the familiar curve her body makes.

She sits beside him, and he briefly wonders why his beer tastes faintly of scotch.

“We’re going to win this case,” he says. He puts the probability around 51% now. There have been worse odds.

She nods, confident in him. “I know.”

“We have this chance because of you.” For all the missteps he’s made over the last thirteen years with her, he’s damn lucky she’s stayed with him through it.

“I already know all of this,” she points out, but she smiles. It has her trademark sass and beauty behind it, and he tries not to notice when she glances down at her watch. He thinks of Brian, and frowns. There have been a few boyfriends to come and go over the years, more than that in dates, yet he’s never cared what she saw in any of them until now.

“He’s a flowers guy, Donna.”

She looks confused. “What?”

“Brian,” he clarifies. It’s too late in the night for a filter, and it’s something he’s wanted to say for months. “He’s the ‘fix it with flowers’ type. You know, simple solutions.”

“Harvey,” she warns.

“I hate that you’re with him,” he admits, and she doesn’t seem able to hide her surprise. He couldn’t stop himself now even if he wanted to, his thoughts all rising to the surface. “I don’t understand what you see in him.”

She stiffens at that. “Well thank god I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

“Last year, when we-“

“Last year,” she says, cutting him off abruptly, “was a choice we both made for very different reasons.”

He knows full well her reason wasn’t professional. “Tell me you don’t think about that night.”

“Oh you have got to be kidding me.”

"It wasn't meaningless," he insists, trying to get her to understand. At the time, he just didn’t know what he had.

She shakes her head. “Harvey, don’t do this again.”

“What line did we cross that night?”

“It doesn’t even matter,” she answers, but her voice is unsteady.

“And the other time?” He wants her to say it. He wants her to put the name to it. 

“What is this about, Harvey?” She looks at him, incredulous. “What do you want from me?”

“Just us. Right here,” he confesses to her, and it’s not the beer talking, but that fucking impossible irrationality charging right off the rails. “ _This_ is what works.”

"God, that's so not fair,” she says heatedly as tears build in her eyes. “I can't keep giving up everything for you."

It's exactly what he doesn't understand. "What's changed?"

“Nothing’s changed!” She stares at him in frustration and disbelief, and then her expression grows sad. “Nothing has changed, Harvey.”

Her answer is what he wants to hear, but it doesn’t sound positive when she says it. It sounds completely wrong. And in the pause that follows, he thinks maybe he’s finally starting to understand the irrationality because love makes no kind of sense at all.

“I’m going home,” she says tiredly.

“Wait, Donna-” He needs to explain, to try using the word love from the beginning this time.

She stops him there as her anger flares. “I’m only going to say this once, so listen carefully if you ever want me coming back to the office again. Get some goddamn sleep, Harvey.”

He’s smart enough to know to shut up after that, and sits with heavy emotion when she leaves. He can’t help but immediately replay the conversation in his head wondering where the hell it went wrong. He knows he made an attempt at a grand gesture in all of that mess, but it was a declaration of love that settled somewhere between jealousy and insecurity. It is the worst delivery of a persuasive argument he’s ever made, and it’s one he’s lost miserably.

“For the record,” Donna says, and he glances up in surprise to see her standing beside the table again. She still looks upset with him, but it’s fading into resignation. “Brian is a ‘text you sorry’ guy. He never even bothered with flowers.”

She doesn’t wait around for him to respond, and her last remark takes him far too long to process. By the time he makes it outside, it’s too late to catch her.

==

The trial arrives, and they reveal the double-cross to Edward, so there’s little time in the chaos of all the blackmail and admissions for him to pull Donna aside and talk. They’re on the same page professionally; everything is as it was – Donna anticipates his next steps as easily as before, and still finds time to throw in her usual quips. But personally, he owes her a gesture. Of course, he’s about as bad at apologies as he is with love, so it’s really not shocking when it’s Donna that forces the issue.

They’re in the elevator alone, 42 floors left to go when she glances over at him.

“I see you finally slept,” she notes, and a little smile plays at the corner of her mouth. Then she lifts an eyebrow. “You have something to say to me.”

He balks and goes for the easiest answer. “Thank you.”

She looks up at the ceiling in exasperation.

“And,” he adds quickly, trying to recover. “I wanted to say it all differently.”

“You know I didn’t stop seeing Brian because of you,” she explains.

He’s curious why she did, but he knows better than to ask that question right now. “I know.”

“I won’t do that anymore, Harvey.”

He knows that’s fair, too. “Look, Donna, telling you I loved you wasn’t supposed to be because of Brian. I wasn’t trying to make it a choice. You didn’t deserve what I said.”

Silence falls and the elevator passes the 23rd floor. Donna’s gone still beside him, and he can’t believe he’s only managing to get himself into this further. Now he knows why his father drank.

“We don’t have to talk about any of this,” he offers, hopeful she’ll take that option.

“What did you say?” she asks quietly.

Oh he’s gone and fucked this apology up royally. He doesn’t know how to start over; he’s actually not really sure he should even say anything anymore.

Donna turns to him, looks at him searchingly. “When you told me ‘this is what works’… what did you mean?”

16 floors left to travel; it’s too long for a flippant answer. “We’re a good team, Donna. It just took me a while to realize that it could have been more.”

She pauses again. “The job?”

“Our relationship. And I’m not going to bring it up again,” he promises whole-heartedly. “We can both just forget-“

“Stop talking, Harvey,” she orders.

He looks at her in surprise, but she has her eyes closed and is shaking her head in the way that tells him he’s really going to be in for it. He hopes the whole thing can just be tabled forever, or preferably until they’re at a bar.

“God, I could just…,” she starts, but she doesn’t finish that thought. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you.”

He doesn’t have an answer. He knows he trusts her, and his life doesn’t make sense without her, and more than anything, he’s really trying to do right by her. But accepting love as a label for his feelings toward Donna is really only the first piece toward understanding what love even means.

“You are absolutely impossible,” she adds, and this time she looks at him. He’s relieved to see she doesn’t look angry, and he’s confused by that as well.

The elevator doors slide open at lobby level and he follows her out. “So, are we okay?”

She spins around, but she’s more amused than pissed. “Okay? Harvey, you’re in love with me. We are not okay.”

He’s running out of options – declaring his love and apologizing for it have both been unsuccessful. And kissing her or firing her doesn’t seem to be a valid possibility. “What do you want me to do, Donna?”

She steps into his space, and it’s innocent in the middle of the lobby with people coming and going. But her hands are at his neck, sliding down to smooth his collar, and she’s so close that when she glances down to reset his tie, his mouth is nearly at her temple.

“You complicate everything, you know,” she says to him quietly. And it’s conceivable that he’s behind on the narrative because she looks back up at him then and kissing her suddenly seems like a very rational choice.

“Oh, it’s not going to be that easy, Harvey,” she says before he can act on the thought, and she moves away with a quick smile. “You’re going to have to work for this.”

==

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note of immense thanks to the trio - H, L, B - for helping me remember how to do this.


	4. Chapter 4

What Harvey knew of love was a fractured memory across his childhood, a feeling so mixed in time with lies and betrayal and abandonment, the elements were nearly impossible to separate. It was logical from there - he didn’t want love because of its complications, and he didn’t need love if he had success.

The surprise, he understands now, is that it’s never been in his control. The gradual destruction of a feeling can be just as unrecognizable if it happens in the reverse. And he thinks about Donna – how it’s taken thirteen years of her patience, honesty and loyalty to piece a broken concept back together.

==

Donna glances up immediately when he holds the coffee cup out for her, a sacred gift during a tumultuous week. It's the smallest offering really, bringing her a morning coffee, but it's not one he's thought to make before. And though he can't comprehend why it took him so damn long to figure it out, he's glad there are still a hundred more little gestures like it waiting for him to use. He always enjoys when he manages to surprise her, and can't help but hope it earns him a smile.

"This is a reversal," she notes, eyeing the coffee and him suspiciously.

He makes to pull it back. "I can give it to Mike..."

"Now hang on," she says quickly, and grabs his wrist to stay him. "Latte?"

"With skim milk."

"Whipped cream?"

He lets that question sit in the air longer than necessary before answering. "Would I forget that?"

The corner of her mouth quirks when the reference solidifies, a smile he knows she only just manages to control. They both share that night's memory. He waits as she weighs the offering in her mind - coffee is insignificant, but his intentions alter everything.

"I accept," she agrees finally, giving in. "Under one condition."

"Donna. It's a cup of coffee."

She doesn't let go of his wrist. "One condition."

He sighs. "What is it?"

"You have to change that tie before you go to court," she dictates, and makes a face. "What were you thinking?"

And it's pretty much a predictable end to the conversation. Some things don't need to change because they work just fine already; their relationship is tried and true a decade over. But if his finger slides across the top of her hand as she takes the coffee from him, and if he finds other moments where he can lightly touch her arm to pull her attention, or press his palm to the small of her back as they leave a room together - well, those changes are working just fine, too.

==

Day three of the trial ends sharply, the fight pulled taut across his shoulders, and he finds his first real breath of the day on the courthouse steps. Turning the tables on Darby had only been an opening play – it gave them the element of surprise, but the prosecution wasn’t slow to adapt. Day three and Harvey is already feeling the heat.

The office is quiet and tense, held in tight order with whispers of dissolution. It's reminiscent of a year ago when the merger's redundancies had everyone's head on a block - the mood steely grey as old alliances were questioned.

“Are you going to win this?” Jessica asks once the door to the stairwell has closed and the breeze on the roof can carry away their words.

“Is this where you tell me I’m out if I don’t?”

She studies him carefully, her smile thin. “No. We’re both in this one. Edward made sure of that.”

The attention was always set up to be a spotlight centered on the two of them, but it remained to be seen if the curtains would close on Darby’s version of the finale, or theirs.

"I'll win," he promises. He doesn't have an alternative answer.

“How far would you have taken it, Harvey?” It’s a simple, quiet question.

He knows exactly what she’s asking – the coup, his initial arrangement with Darby, so well planned and almost perfect. The trial is only one half of the fallout; he still has yet to answer for his betrayal.

“I don’t know,” he confesses finally, and wishes he had something better to say; he owes her that. “Maybe all the way. I didn’t have much incentive to stop.”

It’s a harsh reality, but Jessica takes it with grace.

“Each of us comes to this firm and hopes to leave a legacy,” she says, and thinks for a moment as she looks out over the roof. “Do you know what I see when I look back? Takeovers. The only legacy we’ve ever left is to be overthrown by the next one.”

She turns to him, expression briefly shaded in a hue of regret. “At some point you have to decide, Harvey. What’s going to define yours?”

==

Harvey doesn't list things in order of importance; any problem is winnable, and every goal achievable. A case, a car, a title - there's always another one.

So he only recognizes it with help, the reason for value, why something can mean more than the rest. It's intangible, just a reflection of who he's become, but for reasons he's still learning to articulate, that _matters_.

==

He finds Donna in the copy room, a stack of files to her left with the copy machine dutifully collating and stapling her latest request. He hangs back a minute to watch her - she's arresting in her efficiency, always at the top of her game, and it's to his advantage that his career has been largely shaped by her influence.

"Before you ask, it's already done," she says as he approaches, and hands him the topmost folder from her pile.

He doesn't have to look at it to know it's what he wants. "I think you enjoy this."

"Enjoy what?" she asks innocently. "My excellent mastery of this machine? Or my ability to know exactly what you're thinking?"

"Shouldn't you already know the answer to that?"

She stops organizing for a moment and turns to him with a coy smile. "I do. So are you going to tell me what's bothering you?"

"You mean this?" He gives her a curious look, holds up the folder in his hand.

She dismisses that quickly with a toss of her head. "You didn't come down here to collect a file that would have been on your desk five minutes from now. What's going on, Harvey?"

He shifts on his feet, caught in his own avoidance. He thinks about what Jessica offered, and the debate he's already argued in his head for an hour.

"Managing partner," he says, and the words taste like dust.

If she's surprised by the news, she doesn't show it. Instead, she seems interested in his hesitation and studies him closely. "Jessica is going to need a backer."

He nods in agreement. The firm's shifting stability over the last couple of years came close to being devastating, and the confidence the combination of Pearson and Specter would instill after yet another shakeup can't be understated. But there's guilt behind his uncertainty at the offer that does not sit well.

"Harvey, going after what you wanted didn't put her in this position," Donna comments when he doesn't respond. Her intuition is, as always, spot on.

"Then she's lucky she still has a place at this firm," he remarks, and hears the heavy weight of blame coming through in his words. He's unable to move past it.

Donna frowns. "What you would have done isn't what you _did_. And the reason why is just as important as when you decided it."

He's not in the mood for trivial justifications. "And if Darby hadn't been a lying sack of shit?"

"You earned the title, Harvey."

"No," he argues because now he understands. "I _won_ it."

And the difference is monumental.

==

The inevitable confrontation happens in the lobby a day later - Pearson Darby lettering on the wall behind them, an ironic frame for the conversation.

"I underestimated you, Harvey," Darby admits. "I thought ambition would surpass loyalty."

"Is that _your_ excuse?" He doesn't mean to be immediately defensive, but he's rankled by the assertion and how closely it hits home.

"Naturally, if it's in the best interests of the firm. We once agreed on that point."

Harvey smiles grimly. "Not for any of the same reasons."

"A shame, really," Darby allows, and he actually sounds genuine. "We would have made quite a team."

That comment is laughable. "A _team_? You tried to play me."

"And yet you played both Jessica and myself in quite a feat of duplicity. We're more similar than you think, Harvey."

Harvey's jaw clenches involuntarily from anger and disgust and a quick dash of fear at the words, and he struggles to keep composed. "Is this goodbye, Darby? Or do I have to have you thrown out?"

To his credit, Darby just gives a small nod of acquiescence at that obvious dismissal and steps into a waiting elevator. "Most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it," he says as the doors close. "Don't fool yourself, Harvey."

==

From his window, the city is hundreds of square-shaped lights shining from darkened buildings into the night sky. He finishes his prep by lamplight, the clock just ticking past ten o’clock when Donna steps into his office and holds up two wine glasses.

“You knew?” he asks, amazed. The wine had been an unplanned stop between the courthouse and the office, and he knows she’d been off working with Louis when he returned with the bottle.

She gives an easy shrug. “Of course.”

“Okay, what gave it away?” He looks down at his suit, tries to figure it out. “Tie too loose? Is it the jacket?”

The little smile that appears is like being let in on a secret. “Sometimes it’s just because I know you, Harvey.”

“It could have been scotch,” he remarks, slightly perturbed.

“This isn’t a celebration,” she points out.

There’s no arguing that statement. “Another few days and we’ll know.”

He reaches into the cabinet where he stored the decanter as Donna comes around to his side and perches on the edge of the desk. She looks mildly concerned. “Are they going to win the jurisdiction argument?”

“If they don’t win this, it’s all over.” It’s not a direct answer to her question, but he knows she’ll grasp the nuances. The entire case is a Gordian knot with hundreds of millions in repercussions.

He pours them each a glass, and despite the complicated trial, he feels calm in the moment with Donna beside him. He watches as she takes a sip, and he can tell by the way her eyes immediately flicker sideways to meet his that she recognizes the vintage. It’s a different year and not an impossible wine to find, but he’d hoped a Saint-Émilion Bordeaux would be hard to forget.

“Is this you making a play for me?” she asks, and glances at him suggestively over her glass.

“If it’s working.”

“Mmm.” Her answer is non-committal, but she’s smiling, so that gives him some encouragement.

He admires her silently. She is the epitome of elegance – long legs beneath a pale blue dress, alluring and serene as she leans casually against the desk in a way that states this is both a temporary break from her responsibilities and a place where she belongs. He knows her in this space, and appreciates her talents in this space.

But more frequently now, he finds himself thinking of her beyond the office in the day to day of the mundane – outfits of jeans and cotton tops, watching Sunday movies, or ordering take-out. He thinks about being there for broken faucets and power outages and holidays, knows how efficiently she’d probably run that life too and how it’s always been her holding it all together.

So it’s difficult in the dim light of his office to keep his thoughts compartmentalized into work and home, or professional and personal. He wants to slide his chair in front of her so she’s standing between his legs, wants to gather her skirt where it rests at her thighs and push the folds up above her hips while she watches, her fingers in his hair.

She gives him her best Donna look as though she can read his mind. “You know you’re going to have to explain some things.”

He returns to the moment hastily. “Like what?”

“Like what’s going on with you,” she says gently although it’s guarded in a way he doesn’t miss. “Like _love_ , Harvey, don’t you think that’s something we should talk about?”

Unlike with Scottie where he was sure of her feelings and only doubted his own, this situation is the reverse. He remembers his dad, and it makes him cautious of how easily he could fall. But Harvey’s also not a man lacking in confidence, and his extensive history with Donna is enough to make him reasonably sure she feels for him the way he does for her.

“It’s a complicated answer,” he says. There is nothing about love that he‘s found simple. “And I mean it when I say this isn’t something I want to screw up.”

She looks taken aback by his honesty, and he can see the way she bites at her lip as she thinks. Donna doesn’t wear her vulnerabilities openly, doesn’t often share them even with him, but it’s impossible to miss the fact that she’s nervous.

“Complicated doesn’t seem like a good place to start,” she notes wryly.

“It’s worked for us this long.”

She nods, but she’s unsure and restrained. “So what’s changed?”

It’s his question returned, and he knows it cuts to the heart of the matter. It’s the hardest answer he’s had to try and figure out – a feeling he so often scorned, and still hardly understands.

“It’s always been about the job,” he admits, stating the obvious. “And I found out the kind of lawyer I am because of you. But I realize now what really matters is the kind of man.”

He pauses for words, and hopes for courage. But hope feels nearly as foreign, it’s almost a lesson in itself.

“I don’t know what that looks like without you,” he continues, words coming before thought can destroy them. “And honestly Donna, I wouldn’t want to find out.”

He rubs at the back of his neck, and tries to gauge her reaction. “How am I doing so far?”

She lets out a slow, steady breath. It’s not exactly what he was expecting, and he’s thinking about needing an exit strategy when she reaches for him.

He stills immediately, half in hope. Her movements are calm and deliberate, slender fingers sliding with purpose along the fabric at his chest until they catch on the lapel of his jacket. He watches as the smooth fabric creases in her hold, and then she’s tugging him out of his chair, pulling him flush to her like two magnets aligned.

“If I didn’t know you better,” she says, the corner of her mouth turning up, “I’d think that was a line you just used on me.”

He struggles to control a smile that wants to involve his entire face. “You know, I already admitted I loved you. That’s usually the highlight.”

She peers at him. “Are you trying to set my expectations right now?”

“Right now I’m just thinking about kissing you,” he confesses.

“Well, if you’re waiting for the formal invitation-”

She tugs at his tie, her eyes bright and laughing, and that’s approval enough. His mouth finds hers, and there’s no hesitation and no awkwardness in it, nothing desperate or tinged with worry. He’s kissed her before on opposite ends of the spectrum, but he’s never kissed her like this – like he’s been a goddamn idiot for thirteen years.

And it’s as if she knows, her kiss in return soothing and sensual before it notches up a gear and sends a charged current down his spine. Her mouth is devious, more so than he remembers, their history retold in a clever play of lips and tongue. It’s a lengthy story, and she pulls away from him at the end of a chapter, not the book - leaves them both wanting more.

Her smile is mischievous as she runs her thumb over his lip. "I can work with that."

"Good. I plan to do it often," he acknowledges, and sweeps her hair to the side so he can kiss her neck as evidence.

"Hmm, how about again at my place?"

There's something in her tone; it's too knowing. He looks at her. "You already called Ray, didn't you."

"He'll be here in...," she pauses as she glances down at her watch. "Eight minutes."

He calculates, and then sinks to his knees. "That's enough time."

Her legs are endless with the pale blue dress bunched over her hips.

==

“The trial tomorrow,” she says as she leads him by the hand through her darkened apartment.

“ _That’s_ what you’re thinking about?”

“That’s not _all_ I’m thinking about,” she promises playfully, and she turns to walk the rest of the way backward as she helps shed him of his jacket and tie. “The dissolution begins if we win.”

“Next step’s already in place,” he adds in agreement, finds the zipper to her dress while she unfastens his belt. “Darby won’t walk away with anything."

She nods in dark satisfaction. "And the firm?"

"Jessica has it in hand," he says, carefully avoiding her real question. He knows she's fully aware of that fact, of course, but she doesn't press the issue, and goes to the bed to switch on a side table lamp. He can’t help himself; he stops shucking off his clothes for a moment to appreciate the view as she steps out of her dress. Her heels follow, and it makes sense suddenly, the idea of his day beginning and ending with her.

Donna catches him watching. “This works better if you’re not wearing pants.”

He smirks, but quickly removes those too. “Any other advice?”

“I’m sure you can handle it from here,” she replies cheekily. She rejoins him at the foot of the bed, and the hazy yellow light casts a warm bronze glow on her skin and turns her hair to golden flames. The effect is striking, her beauty luminescent. He makes that observation aloud, and is inordinately pleased with himself when it makes her blush.

His memories are too eroded by time and emotional inconsistencies to still be concrete, but holding her feels recognizable in an abstract way. It’s a sense of history, of something meaningful, and he pulls her closer, lets his fingers map the length of her spine into permanence as she curves into him. Her mouth opens to his readily, and he knows it’s his emotions and irrationality overruling logic, but kissing her is an extension of the familiar - unspoken words that still convey meaning.

“You know,” she says, and gently pushes him back onto the bed. “I might have made this too easy for you.”

“Made what too easy?”

"Me. Us,” she states, and sits on his legs before he can think to move. “You’re not off the hook.”

He runs his hands up her thighs, warm soft skin beneath his palms. “No, I’m irresistible.”

“Oh please.” But she gives him a teasing smile, and lets him pull her down for a kiss. He takes the opportunity to divest her of her bra, a dark-blue satin piece that ends up somewhere on her floor. His briefs follow as she helps wrest them off his hips, and then her hand wraps around his cock and the order of things stops being important.

There's the view he loves - his hands on her breasts, and her hair long and curling in gold red waves past her shoulders as she sits above him. He admits he's rather turned on and quite in love with her for it, and she tells him if he's making another attempt to win her over then he's off to a good start.

There's her ability to multi-task as she keeps one hand on him and rips open the condom packet with her teeth. She eases on to him slowly, in full control, and the roll of her hips is something he knows he's still going to be thinking about in court tomorrow. She keeps a hand at his wrist, the other on the bed, and he chases her tempo, uses a foot against the floor for leverage when she cants forward. The rhythm quickens, a staccato beat, until their breaths are rapid and uneven and he's fighting to hold the moment through sheer force of will.

There's the way she says his name as if it's always been on her tongue waiting to be this significant, and how that hits him in the chest like a punch. It's a brilliant flash of understanding that aches sweetly. His being in love with her has consequences, he realizes; he's the one that's bringing her into this with him. He knows from experience that love is so easily selfish and damaging without perspective, and he's suddenly fiercely protective of her heart.

Later, she opens her eyes and looks at him, tightens around him in fluttering pulses, and he finally surrenders then, comes hard, and nearly finds oblivion.

==

The end of the trial resolves like 87% of all their cases do - out of court with a settlement. It takes just one meeting for a half a year, multi-million dollar controversy to be quietly resolved. There's no public recognition for closing the case and bringing about the impossible, but for the first time Harvey finds he cares little about glory.

The dissolution of the merger takes longer. The firm is strong in position but weak in appearance despite Harvey's latest win, and Edward's influence is long reaching. But Jessica doesn't cave to the pressure, doesn't even bow - her strength and belief in the firm's future unyielding.

Harvey stays in Jessica's office at her request as Louis and Mike file out to handle the latest development in the negotiation. It's a lengthy process, but everyone is eager for revenge, and reassured by Jessica's resolute leadership.

"My offer still stands," she tells him, and takes a seat on the couch.

Harvey already declined the title, but she doesn't seem satisfied with his answer. "You don't need me in order to run this firm, Jessica."

"Need? No," she agrees confidently. "But I want a different kind of partnership for a change."

"I think you're forgetting how we ended up here."

Her head tilts and she looks at him curiously. "I wondered if you were going to let that go."

"I'm surprised you did."

"The future isn't bound only by the past, Harvey. And I don't offer you the firm blindly," she reminds him. "We'd be in this together, full disclosure, for better or worse."

It's taken him the better part of a lifetime to understand value and recognize that he is accountable for the repercussions. He wants the responsibility of managing partner, he just isn't sure he should be trusted with it.

"Pearson Specter," he says aloud to hear how it sounds. This stake in the firm means a whole hell of a lot more now than it ever did before.

"Can you live with that?" she asks. And he knows she's not talking about the name or the politics. It's not even a question about loyalties.

Their partnership would represent a fresh start; Pearson Specter is a new kind of legacy.

==

It's somewhere near morning - dawn a spill of bright, orange-yellow paint across the bottom of the sky as they drink coffee in his kitchen and skim through their phones trading updates. Donna sits close beside him, her hand occasionally on his leg, and his hand working small knots of tension from the muscles in her shoulders and neck. There's an easy intimacy between them, so comfortable it's almost like any other morning he's had with her for a decade. It's less an evolution, and more a simple, natural continuation of their existing relationship.

"Louis is requesting to act as commissioner," she shares.

"Again?"

"Four years of trying - you have to admire his persistence."

He shakes his head. "Norma's turned down every bribe ever offered, and Louis can't even convince her to watch his cat when he leaves town."

"She thinks he might finally be willing to get her that Louis Vuitton luggage set," Donna says with a laugh. She looks up at him, her hand trailing circles over his thigh. "It's officially your firm today."

He feels pride at that, a sense of well-earned success. "Can opener at the office?"

"And whipped cream in the fridge," she adds.

It immediately sends his mind on a diverting tangent. "What if we start that part of the celebration early?"

"By my count, you still owe me a couple of dates first."

He kisses her neck, unable to resist touching her. He enjoys the connection, the added layer he shares with her now - it's a little bit possessive, partly protective, but it's definitely because he's just in love with the feel of her. Their relationship at the office is professional, mostly - the unintentional lapses usually his fault.

She doesn't protest when he draws his mouth up her neck to the sensitive spot below her ear. Her skin is warm and smells of his ginger and grapefruit soap. "What I have in mind would start to make that up to you," he offers.

"Hmm," she says and pretends to think about it as he places the next kiss on the side of her mouth. "That's a pretty big win for your first day."

"It's a good thing winning isn't what defines me," he responds facetiously, his lips lightly brushing hers.

" _Really_ now."

"Someone told me that once."

Donna rolls her eyes fondly, but she's wearing an inviting smile that he gladly kisses. She tastes of sweet lattes and good choices.

"Sounds like someone smart," she notes as his hands slip beneath her shirt.

"Oh, you have no idea."

 

- _Fin_


End file.
